“He didn’t like beignets. I should’ve known right then that he wasn’t you. And it was the way he talked. It was so formal. He killed Henry. Snapped his neck. Right there, in front of me, for no reason, and I still didn’t realize it wasn’t you. He claimed that Henry knew what I was, and I believed him, even though deep down I knew if Henry or Kyle knew I was the . . . the halfling, they wouldn’t have let me live for any reason. But I . . . I wanted it so badly to be you, for you to be magically okay with what I was,” I explained, wrapping my arms around my knees. “And if Henry hadn’t showed up, I . . .”
“I heard from Brighton that Henry was missing. I figured he was dead. I don’t know the details,” he said after a moment. “What about if Henry hadn’t showed up?”
I closed my eyes, resting my cheek on my knees. Acid churned in my stomach. “I thought he was you,” I whispered.
“I know that. When I saw him, I thought he was me. Total mind fuck. So I get it.” A heartbeat passed. “Did he . . . did he touch you?”
Turning my head so my face was between my knees, I made fists with my hands. “It didn’t get very far.” My voice was muffled and my face burned. “We were at your place. Henry showed up, looking for you. He . . . he interrupted it.”
Silence.
Then Ren growled. “Fuck.”
The bed shook as he rose, and I squeezed my eyes shut until I saw tiny bursts of light. The wanting to crawl out of my skin sensation returned with a vengeance.
“When they let me go, they dumped me down in Little Woods,” he said, and I opened my eyes, thinking holy crap. “I was fucking out of it, but I made it back to my place. It took me hours. The place was a wreck. I found your bag and phone. Found your necklace. Knew you’d been there. Knew he’d gone for you, because he’d told me what he planned to do. It’s all he fucking talked about.” He cursed again, and a knot formed in the back of my throat. “I’m going to fucking kill him. Fucking cut off his dick and fucking feed it to him.”
I raised my head, watching him pace back and forth. He stopped at the foot of the bed, placing his hands on his waist. His head bowed and his jaw was clenched.
“It never . . .” I tried, voice reedy. “He never got to that point. Ever. I got out before . . .”
Ren looked up, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “That doesn’t change that he did things to you. That he tried. That doesn’t change how fucked up any of that is or that so many goddamn lines have been crossed, or that you didn’t deserve this shit. No one deserves this shit!” he exploded. Turning away, he thrust his hand through his hair. His waves fell in every direction as he twisted back to face me. “He kept you chained. I remember seeing you. I remember you being brought to me with a fucking chain around your neck.”
Oh God.
My hands shook, and I straightened out my legs. I couldn’t do this. Tucking my hair behind my ears, I started to scoot toward the edge of the bed.
“You made a deal with that bastard to set me free,” Ren said, stopping me. I froze as I heard the anger in his voice. “You sacrificed yourself for me, and I couldn’t do anything to stop you from doing it, to stop him from hurting you.”
I opened my mouth, saying nothing as I shook my head. I wasn’t ready for this. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I had to get moving. I stood on weak knees, my thoughts swirling. I walked toward the door, but veered away from it at the last second. Stopping in the center of the room, I stared at the window above the TV and willed my lungs to expand. Then I slowly turned to him.
His eyes shone like glittering emeralds. “You’re the bravest person I know,” he said.
My hands closed into fists. He had no idea and was absolutely crazy. “I’m not brave. I just . . . I couldn’t let him hurt you anymore. I . . .”
“You love me,” he said, voice low. “That’s why.”
Part of me wanted to deny it and save face, but what was the point? I love Ren was practically tattooed across my forehead at this point. “I do, but—”
“I love you, Ivy.”
I blinked once and then twice, thinking I was having auditory hallucinations. “What?”
“I love you. I’m fucking in love with you.” Ren took a step forward. “I don’t know how long I’ve been in love with you, but it was probably that night you flipped me onto my back, straddled me, and held a dagger to my throat. If it wasn’t that night, it was the first time you let me get close to you, let me see the real you under everything.”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered.
“Crazy in love with you.”
I started to laugh, but stopped myself because it wasn’t going to be a good, jolly belly kind of laugh. “I’m a halfling, Ren.”
“I know,” he said, taking another slow step toward me. “I know what you are.”
“Apparently not,” I croaked out. “I’m not completely human. I’m part fae. I’m—”
“You’re Ivy Morgan.” He was breathing rapidly. “You’re this beautiful, wild, and brave woman. You’re incredibly loyal, and I don’t deserve your love, but I’ll take it. I’ll keep it close to me and I’ll never regret a damn second of doing so. You just also happen to be a halfling. That doesn’t change who I fell in love with.”
Tiny pinpricks of light illuminated my insides, whipping over the cold darkness. I wanted to believe what he was saying. I wanted to so badly, but it made no sense. “When I told you, you walked away from me. I told you I was the halfling and that I loved you, and you walked away from me.”
“And that is something I regret with every breath I take.”
“No. No.” I closed my eyes and scrubbed my hand down my face. “You shouldn’t regret that. I caught you off-guard. I get why you needed time.”
Ren was inching closer. “I knew I cared deeply about you the moment I had you under me and I was in you,” he said, and my body flushed hot at the reminder. I was kind of pleased to realize all that seemed to be functioning normally. He took a shallow breath. “I didn’t know it was love then. I’d never felt for anyone the way I did about you, but I also had never been in love before. But when I was sitting in that damn room, before my head got all foggy, all I could think about was you. Getting out of that place and getting back to you. Being with you, keeping you safe. I didn’t give two shits that you were the halfling.”
“You were sent here to find and kill me,” I reminded him.
His jaw hardened. “Fuck that. Fuck why I came here. I would never lay a damn finger on you that you didn’t want there.”
“You can’t feel this way,” I protested, backing up. “Remember what happened to Noah? He was your best friend and you had—”
“I remember what I had to do, and now I know I did the wrong damn thing,” he said. “But this has nothing to do with Noah.”
“You can’t go through that again,” I told him.
“I don’t plan to. And I don’t care what you are. Trust me, when I was taken—when you were taken—I got real one on one with the way I felt about you. Those weeks you were there and I couldn’t get to you? Yeah, I figured out real fucking fast what I cared about and what I didn’t,” he told me, his eyes flashing a deep forest green. “I love you, Ivy. You aren’t going to talk me out of that.”
“But you . . .” He didn’t know all the things I’d done. He had no idea. I dragged my hand down my face again. “He—the prince—he made me do things, Ren. I don’t think you would feel the same way if you knew.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and then reopened them. “I can’t imagine what he made you do, but I want to know everything—everything you’re comfortable sharing with me, whenever you want. But I’m telling you right now, it’s not going to change the way I feel about you. It’s only going to make me want to kill him even more.”
My stomach dipped. It wasn’t unpleasant, but my thoughts were. “You don’t know that, Ren. You don’t.”
“I do.” His voice was hard. “I love you. That’s not going to change. I love—”
; “He made me feed on people!” I shouted.
Ren drew up short, his face paling.
“You see? You can’t love someone who did that. You can’t be with me, knowing what I am, knowing what I’ve done!” Tears burned my throat and eyes. “I hurt a woman. I know I did. I might’ve—oh God, I might’ve even killed her. I don’t know. I didn’t even know I could do that, but I did. I did it, and I hurt her and she tried to make me stop, and I couldn’t. And I could do it to you.”
Something flickered over his face, an emotion that was damn near feral. “You would never do that to me.”
I fisted the side of my robe. “You don’t know that.”
“Did you feed of your own free will or did he manipulate you into doing it?”